Roadtripping

On the American Queen: Oak Alley Plantation

On Friday the American Queen docked in Vacherie, Louisiana, next to Oak Alley, a former sugar plantation known for the double row of ancient live oaks that form a canopy over the walkway to the plantation house. I was more interested in the swamp tour, but there was time on the way back to wander through the grounds.

We had passed several large plantations on our way to the swamp tour, and our guide on the bus, noting that for the most part the main houses were not impressive, told us: “It’s what goes on behind the main house that’s important” – meaning crops, barns, and any kind of processing facilities.

Oak Alley might be the exception, a large Greek Revival style house built in the 1830s and the Grande Dame of River Road. But the oak trees are older, maybe as much as 300 years old. The view above is of the back of the house, which doesn’t have the enormous double row of oak trees, although it does have some very large and very old oaks. But what caught my attention was the big sugar kettle, maybe 6 to 8 feet across, that is used now as an above-ground lily pond.

For information on Oak Alley, click here.

 

The American Queen: On a Louisiana bayou

On our first full day on the Mississippi River, we stopped at Vacherie, Louisiana, for one of several morning tours. About 50 of us signed up for a boat tour of a bayou. It’s a good thing I didn’t know how early it started – we had to be on the levee by the boat by 7:45 a.m. – or I might not have chosen this tour. Hey, this is vacation, folks! But this is an early-to-bed group on the American Queen, and what’s an early start for me doesn’t seem to faze the others.

The main attraction turned out to be alligators. Since I went to Shark Valley in the Everglades the week before I left on this trip, just seeing gators isn’t that big a thrill. But this was a private tour on private property, which apparently carries no restrictions on feeding wildlife.

So out we went on our boat, our Cajun guide calling out to critters and throwing bits of food to attract them, and before we knew it, half a dozen alligators were swimming toward us. The guide squatted on a platform on the side of the boat, dangling chicken necks. The gators raised up and snapped at the chicken necks like dolphins snap up fish from their trainers at a SeaWorld show.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Somehow our guide got through the feeding with all his fingers intact, and our boat started moving again when the gators were sated with chicken necks. He told stories about the history of Cajuns, hurricanes, alligator eggs, pirogues, tupelo honey, cypress trees, public schools, the difference between rivers and bayous, a cat that outsmarts alligators and just about anything else you could think of. And all the while he watched out for more critters, including a raccoon named Roxy who came out into the open to greet him and beg for food.

He must have thought our attention was lagging because our guide pulled out a baby alligator he had stashed in a small aquarium that we hadn’t noticed. The baby was maybe three feet long – the tail is longer than you think – and its mouth was gently taped shut so it wouldn’t eat us.

“I don’t know of any gator who has eaten a person, but people eat gators, so I’m not sure the right party has its mouth taped shut,” the guide said.

Then he handed the gator to the passenger sitting closest to him and we passed him around so we could take pictures of each other holding it. Now THAT was a thrill. 

 

Road trip attraction: Southern Food & Beverage Museum

When a flight carrying four would-be passengers on the American Queen riverboat was delayed on Thursday, the captain of the ship decided to postpone its departure an hour to wait for the passengers. Lucky for me, the ship was docked next to the Southern Food and Beverage Museum at the New Orleans Riverwalk, and the delay gave me a chance to tour it.

A foodie to the bone, I’d visited the museum in 2009, about a year after it opened, but this trip gave me a chance to see exhibits that had opened since then. The museum examines food, its production and preparation throughout the South, but its location in New Orleans gives it a Louisiana emphasis that has grown stronger since my last visit. A sugar exhibit, for example -- Tout de Sweet: All About Sugar – focuses on sugar production in Louisiana (what a missed opportunity, the story of sugar, politics and the environment in Florida!). La Galerie d’Absinthe, a collection of Absinthe artifacts and ephemera, tells the story of this licorice flavored liqueur that, although French, has strong ties to New Orleans.

(Pictured: the gears from a sugar refinery, dried stalks of sugar cane and other sugar items.)

An exhibit on coastal seafood, in contrast, applied to all the Gulf Coast states. But perhaps the most universal aspect of the museum is the wide array of Southern cookbooks in the gift shop. Not that I'm complaining -- the food of Louisiana is one of America's most intriguing cuisines.

The museum is already preparing to move to a larger space in the spring of 2013. Its new home will have 30,000 square feet, triple its current exhibition space. The plan is to feature food stories from every state, a museum staffer told me.  

For information on the museum, click here.

(At right, absinthe, its special glass and spoon and other ephemera.)